Asthéneia

ACT 6

It took time, but they chose a young Strand called Tau Ceti. Life was still in it’s infancy there, as the star had only recently shifted from a Blue Dwarf to a Yellow Dwarf. This made it a prime target, as it meant Asthéneia could attempt something truly profound… To create life that was a sentient plague in and of itself. They chose a simple retrovirus as their vector, one that would bring Asthéneia’s six greatest works together as one to fuel the evolution of their chosen Strand. To make a Species, not ruled by Kanna’s will, but by Asthéneia’s, and hers alone…

The other Pillars watched on with concern. Asthéneia was to embody an aspect of entropy, of decay… not one of life, of creation. Epignos, ever watchful of what was happening throughout the Strands, was naturally the first to become aware of her acts. He was merely an observer, but he knew this was beyond the bounds of her domain. He informed the other Pillars as to what was being done, seeking their input to decide whether or not to interrupt Kanna’s current work.

Chronos scanned the futures branching from Asthéneia’s experiment. The calculations unfolded in cold, precise layers across his awareness. The local flow of Tau Ceti’s Strand would remain intact; no paradox would fracture its cycles. Yet even minor contact between this new life and any neighboring Strand carried the risk of severe damage to the greater fabric. His gears slowed as the final probabilities settled. He lifted his void-face toward the others.

“The when of Tau Ceti remains undisturbed,” Chronos said, voice like the measured turning of countless mechanisms. “But the risk of contagion beyond its borders is unacceptable. A single uncontrolled thread could fray the architecture of multiple Strands. Kanna must be told.”

Nyx stood beside him, cloak of starless night shifting like slow smoke. She had watched the projected forms of the emerging life—creatures of living nightmare, fear and terror given flesh and will. In every future she examined, their darkness held no promise of dawn, no distant light toward which they might strive. Such absolute night without the possibility of morning felt wrong even to her. She spoke quietly, yet the words carried the weight of deep places.

“They will be fear made flesh,” Nyx said. “Living nightmares without the hope of morning. Even the deepest dark should carry the seed of a distant dawn. This cannot be what was intended. I stand with Chronos. Kanna must know.”

Still reeling from his defeat at Aelthir, Próklisi nearly joined them. The urge to report the overreach rose hot in his chest. Then he felt it—the sharp, clean spark of challenge inherent in the act itself. Asthéneia was reaching beyond her domain, testing the very boundaries of what entropy was permitted to become. That provocation was not theirs to answer. He straightened, solar fire flickering low along his cloak.

“No,” Próklisi said firmly. “This is a challenge thrown at the weave itself. It is not our place to deliver the response. That belongs to Kanna alone. Let Him answer it, or let the consequences teach their own lesson. I vote against informing Him.”

Eriselpis watched with childlike wonder. “What would they look like? What would their society be like? Would they make art? Spread knowledge? Would they…” Próklisi, placed a hand atop her wild hair, bidding her to be calm, and more importantly to be silent. It was clear her curiosity meant her vote was to let this happen.

With two votes for, two against, and with Epignos abstaining, that only left Thanatos to determine the outcome. The pillars turned to him, awaiting his vote. Thanatos stood, his charcoal and ash robe shifting as he gazed across the Strands of Tau Ceti. The flames of his eyes dimmed within his mask as he considered what was before him. He recalled his own actions that defied Kanna, and the consequences thereof. He considered their domains, their orders… and how he had been able to change his. Finally, he weighed the risks to his own domain before he spoke.

His words came out measured, chosen with great care. “We are both pillars of entropy. Our duty is to the end of life, so that life may continue… Not for it to begin, not to make new life, not to choose the path life will take. Our sister is stepping outside her domain. Regardless of whether her creation would spread her domain, it is still creation. We must contact Kanna… if it is his will that entropy can create as well as destroy then so be it.”

Epignos bowed in acknowledgement, his form fading as he left to inform Kanna.

On the sixth planet of the Tau Ceti Strand, one of two planets in the system that would eventually hold life, Asthéneia and Dara were close to finishing their work. It was still quite early in the Strand’s existence… so early that the primordial ooze, pools of single celled organisms, had just started to combine into the first multicellular organisms.

Dara gently examined the primordial ooze, watching as it dripped between her fingers. “This world’s gravity is strong, it will only make your art stronger.”

Asthéneia nodded. “and when they grow, when their strength spreads my art, all my siblings will know that we are greater than our father. The retrovirus is prepared, you should leave my love. You were once mortal yourself, we cannot risk it changing you as well.”

Though Asthéneia could not see it, Dara smiled, relieved. Dara walked up giving Asthéneia a small kiss on the side of her mask. “I will wait for you my dear. Try not to make me wait too long.”

Once Dara left, Asthéneia knelt to the pool of primordial ooze. “You may not know it little ones, but soon you will become greater than any other. And you will – be – mine.”

The Limbo held its breath. Asthéneia pulled from her cloak a single ampoule vial, ready to break it and spill its contents.

Then Kanna was simply there. No footsteps. No wind. Only absolute, disappointed presence. Asthéneia turned from primordial ooze, looking upon Kanna’s visage. “Father, have you come to watch my greatest art yet?”

Kanna looked at the unbroken ampoule, holding within six plagues, six disasters, six dooms. His voice was winter at the end of time. “This was never about your art. You were meant only to bring decay for life to grow. Not to change life’s course, you have overstepped your bounds. There needs only be one source of Entropy.”

Asthéneia’s mask wept a single black tear that hung, never falling. “I made it beautiful,” she said, defiant.

“You made it rival,” Kanna answered. He raised one hand.

Asthéneia understood what was about to happen, that she was to be punished. “No father, not this time, not ever!” She broke the ampoule, tossing it over the pool of primordial ooze, and in a single fluid motion stepped into Temporal Limbo.

Kanna didn’t waste a second. He didn’t need to. The Strand simply froze, all time within drained. The ampoule held itself in mid-air, not a single drop having escaped before being frozen. Then Kanna was gone, following after Asthéneia, but appearing before her within Limbo.

“No!” Asthéneia screamed, “You can’t stop me! Not when I was so close!”

The Limbo itself folded, timelessness made weapon. Time did not stop—it was stripped away. Asthéneia felt every second she had ever stolen, every century she had twisted, every heartbeat she had turned to rot, wrenched out of her like veins pulled through skin. She opened her mouth to scream, whether in defiance or in pain only Kanna would know. The scream froze on bone lips.

Her cloak of moaning skins hardened into stone. Her mask fused to flesh that was no longer flesh. Black tears crystallized mid-fall, suspended like obsidian jewels. She became as a statue—perfect, terrible, aware. Every plague she had ever birthed still sang inside her.Every scream still echoed in ears that could no longer move.

She felt every plague she had ever placed continue their slow, exquisite work across living strands. She could feel new plagues form, weak… insignificant… lacking her beauty, her artistry. But they were beyond her reach, she could not add a single new brushstroke. Kanna looked upon her for a long, sorrowful moment. Then He turned and walked away.

Timeless Limbo exhaled, able to relax at last.

Epignos recorded and withdrew, as always, but his eyes were not the only ones that saw what happened. A second pair watched, eyes that belonged to no Pillar yet known. They watched from a fold in the dark between moments—ancient, patient, amused. When Kanna vanished and the Limbo emptied, those eyes remained. Only when absolute silence settled did the figure step forward. Feminine, soft… Human.

Barefoot on nothingness. Her cloak was the color night forgets. Her face was hidden behind a mask of living shadow that showed only a gentle smile. She approached the petrified pillar, once a self-proclaimed goddess. She laid one small, warm hand on the cold stone shoulder of Asthéneia’s statue. Beneath the time frozen skin, a rotten heart still beat—slow, defiant, immortal. The figure felt it.

She leaned close, lips brushing the frozen ear beneath porcelain hair. “You did well, sister, but I did warn you not to make me wait.” she whispered. The voice was as soft as the first lie ever told. She pressed a kiss to the place where stone met rot. Then she stepped back into the fold between moments and was gone.

No one saw.

No one heard.

But centuries later—if any Pillar had ever returned to check on the Third’s prison—they might have noticed a single, hairline crack on the statue’s left shoulder. A tiny chip missing, as though something warm had been gently, lovingly taken. Asthéneia remained exactly where Kanna left her—masked, cloaked, weeping tears that would never fall, smiling a smile that would never fade, feeling every scream she had ever painted and waiting for the day the crack widens and rot walks free again.

As they left, if they turned back one final time, they might even notice a single feather, the color of storms, hanging up high.

Kanna would later return to the sixth planet of Tau Ceti. The ampoule still frozen in time, still hanging, awaiting release so it may fall. That release came, but not the fall. Kanna plucked it out of the air, willing the time in the Strand to flow once more.

He considered the ampoule, and its contents for a moment. A living plague, a sentient plague, was too dangerous to allow. It would ruin his plan, everything he had set in motion. However, a species that could use viruses to their own end was an intriguing concept. That, he could allow.

And so it was that the people of Tau Ceti evolved to communicate by sending retroviral spores. Sadly, no other species in any cosmos communicated in such a manner, so when they had grown and learned enough to send messages into the darkness of space, nobody understood what was sent as an attempt to communicate. No response would ever come. And the people of Tau Ceti would end, believing themselves to have been alone in all the universe.